Indian Captive (32 page)

“If, my daughter, you choose to take the hand of this man of your own color and follow the path where he leads, I have no right to say a word. But if you choose to stay with the Senecas, then the pale-faces have no right to speak. Whatever you choose, no pale-face, no Seneca, shall change your decision. Now reflect upon it and take your choice and tell us. It shall be as you decide. I have spoken.”

The room was very still. It was still with all the silence of complete emptiness, as if no man breathed or moved or stirred. It was still with the silence of mingled hope and fear, for hope and fear, with desperate strength, struggled against each other in the breasts of the waiting Indians.

Molly thought of everything, and yet it seemed as if the turmoil in her mind was so great, she could not think at all. She thought of the children she had just left crying at the door. She thought of her special friends—Turkey Feather, Beaver Girl, Shining Star and Earth Woman. She thought of her home and family, her parents, brothers and sisters—all gone, never to be recovered. She thought of the Englishman in red and his smiling face. She looked at him and he was speaking—speaking to her only, in English, so that the Indians might not understand.

“My child, you were torn away from home and family by the ruthless Indians,” he said, speaking fast.

“Don’t let their fine words blind you to the crime which they committed against you, in destroying your family, in stealing you away from your home, from white people. Don’t fool yourself, or let them fool you into thinking that you can forgive them. You may at the moment, but later you will come to hatred. You will never stop hating till you have had your revenge.

“These Indians, who profess to be so friendly, have caused you to suffer every hardship—hunger, sickness, pain and distress. They are a cruel, relentless, wicked and savage people. They are revengeful and cannot be trusted. They are letting you grow up, an untamed savage, like a wild animal in the forest. They will marry you to an Indian whom you cannot love; your children will be Indian children, who will be hated by the white people.

“From this, my child, I will take you away. I shall give you a good home, send you to a school to acquire education and a polish of good manners. I shall give you all the benefits of civilized life. I shall make a lady out of you. Surely you would prefer to be a cultivated lady rather than a savage! Surely there is only one choice you can make!”

His words brought back to Molly a picture of the woman in shining silk at Fort Duquesne. What if she had stayed there as she had so much wanted to do? She wondered what life with the white people would be like—rich people, who wore not homespun, but silk in glistening, bright colors.

Then she remembered the Englishman’s words. He was right. It was true. She was an untamed savage, growing up like a wild beast in the forest. She looked for a moment at the open palm of her hand and saw how hard and calloused it was—from work. It would never lie soft and idle on shining silk. She was not meant to grace a rich man’s home—to be an elegant lady. An inner conviction told her so.

At that moment she saw Old Shagbark looking at her, his brown eyes overflowing with kindness and understanding. He knew how hard it was for her to decide. She did not need to say a word—he knew what was going on in her mind. She saw the Englishman, too. His lips were smiling, but his eyes of cold gray were hard. Even if she were able to put all her thoughts into words, she knew he would never, never understand. Better to live with those who understood her because they loved her so much, than with one who could never think with her, in sympathy, about anything. Better to stay where she belonged, with the Indians who loved and understood her, and whom she could always love and understand in return. Squirrel Woman’s scowling face and even Gray Wolf’s wicked one no longer held any terrors, because she understood them.

Perhaps the Englishman was right—she ought to hate the Indians for the crime which they had committed against her—but in her heart there was no feeling of revenge, no hate. It was only war that she hated—war which set nation against nation; the French against the English, and the poor Indians between them both. It was war which had deprived her of her family. As she had suffered once in losing her family, so did the Indians suffer like losses, over and over. Her loss was no greater than theirs.

No, by coming to the Indians, she was the richer. She had learned much that she might not otherwise have learned. No matter what lay in store for her, she was willing now to go out to meet it. All that she had suffered in coming to the Indians would make the rest of her life easy by comparison. No pain, no sorrow which the future held, would be too great to bear. She was sister to the animals, to all growing things; she was sister to the Indians, because she had suffered pain with them. Because her pain had been so great, she would be sister to the suffering as long as she lived. Washed clean by pain, she faced the future unafraid.

Molly turned and faced the assembled people. She held out her arms.

“I cannot go!” she said, in a clear, steady voice. “I wish to stay. The Senecas are my people. I will live and die with the Senecas.”

There was no hesitation. The words came with deliberate calm. Her decision was made. It was a decision born of a long ripening and so there was no faltering, no regret.

A hubbub of excitement filled the council house. Cries and exclamations were heard on all sides. The Englishman stalked out without ceremony, followed by his men and Gray Wolf.

Shining Star whispered in Molly’s ear: “Gray Wolf did not earn his gold pieces, after all. But he goes to Fort Niagara with Captain Morgan just the same. The Englishman has promised him a white man’s suit and all the fire-water he can drink. We are well rid of them both.” Outside, Molly heard little Blue Trout cry out: “Corn Tassel is going to stay!” The other children took up the chorus: “Corn Tassel is going to stay—Corn Tassel is going to stay with us!

As Chief Burning Sky raised his hand, the people quieted down. “Your name, Corn Tassel,” said he, “was given to you by the women on the day when your two sisters brought you to us, because your hair is the color of the tassel on the corn. But now you have earned your real name.

“By the sympathy, perseverance and courage which you have shown since you came among us, by your willingness to give up the life of a white woman cheerfully to become an Indian Woman, you have earned the name,
Little-Woman-of-Great Courage.
Cherish this name and do not tarnish it. Like this piece of silver, cut in delicate design, which I bestow upon you, keep it shining bright.”

He placed a delicately wrought silver bracelet upon her slender wrist. “You are now a woman, and the women of our tribe will welcome you as one of themselves. Welcome to the Senecas, Little-Woman-of-Great-Courage.”

Again Molly heard her mother’s voice speaking and the words sounded like an echo of Chief Burning Sky’s: “It don’t matter what happens, if you’re only strong and have great courage.”

Molly went out of the council house, surrounded by her happy, smiling friends. The children came running joyously to meet her. Swiftly she caught up little Blue Trout and held him to her breast.

Inside, her heart was singing: “Oh, Ma! You are pleased, too, I know—with your Little-Woman-of-Great-Courage!”

Canfield, W.W.—LEGENDS of the Iroquois, 1902.

Curtin, Jeremiah—Seneca Indian Myths, 1922.

Howe, Henry—Historical Collections of Ohio, 1902. Hubbard, J. Niles, and Minard, J. S.—Sketches of Border Adventures in the Life and Times of Major Moses Van Campen, 1893.

Morgan, Lewis H.—
The League of the Iroquois,
Vols. I and II, 1851.

Parker, Arthur C.—
Analytical Study of Seneca Indians,
1926.

———
Life of Ely S. Parker,
1919.

———
Seneca Myths and Folk-Tales,
1923.

Phelps, Martha Bennett—
Frances Slocum, The Lost Sister of Wyoming,
1916.

Quaife, Milo Milton (Editor)—
The Indian Captivity of O. M. Spencer,
1917.

Seaver, James Everett, M.D.—
Life of Mary Jemison,
22
^nd
edition, American Scenic & Historic Preservation Society, N. Y., 1925.

Severance, E. H.—
Gilbert Captivities,
1904.

Tome, Philip—
Thirty Years a Hunter,
1854.

N. Y. State Hist. Ass’n. Pub.—
History of the State of New York, N. Y.,
1933.

Vol. I., Chap. III.
The Iroquois.
By A. C. Parker.

———
Chap. IV
The Civilization of the Red Man,
By A. C. Parker.

Buffalo Hist. Soc. Pub. Vol. VI.—
The Life of Horatio Jones.
By Geo. H. Harris. Buffalo, N. Y., 1903. Standard works on American Indian life; publications of Buffalo Historical Society; Rochester Historical Society; New York State Museum Bulletins.

Captivity stories of New England and the Middle West.

Lois Lenski was born in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. The fourth of five children of a Lutheran minister and a schoolteacher, she was raised in the rural town of Anna, Ohio, west of Springfield, where her father was the pastor. Many of the children’s books she wrote and illustrated take place in small, closely knit communities all over the country that are similar to Lenski’s hometown.

After graduating from high school in 1911, Lenski moved with her family to Columbus, where her father joined the faculty at Capital University. Because Capital did not yet allow women to enroll, she attended college at Ohio State University. Lenski took courses in education, planning to become a teacher like her mother, but also studied art, and was especially interested in drawing. In 1915, with a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, she decided to pursue a career in art, and moved to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League of New York.

In an illustration class at the League, Lenski met a muralist named Arthur Covey. She assisted him in painting several murals, and also supported herself by taking on parttime jobs drawing fashion advertisements and lettering greeting cards. In October 1920, she left New York to continue her studies in Italy and London, where the publisher John Lane hired her to illustrate children’s books. When she returned to New York in 1921, she married Covey and became stepmother to his two children, Margaret and Laird.

Early in her career, Lenski dedicated herself to book illustration. When a publisher suggested that she try writing her own stories, she drew upon the happy memories of her childhood. Her first authored book,
Skipping Village
(1927), is set in a town that closely resembles Anna at the start of the twentieth century.
A Little Girl of 1900
(1928) soon followed, also clearly based on Lenski’s early life in rural Ohio.

In 1929, Lenski’s son, Stephen, was born, and the family moved to a farmhouse called Greenacres in Harwinton, Connecticut, which they would call home for the next three decades. Lenski continued to illustrate other authors’ books, including the original version of
The Little Engine That Could
(1930) by Watty Piper, and the popular Betsy-Tacy series (1940–55) by Maud Hart Lovelace. Lenski also wrote the Mr. Small series (1934–62), ten books based on Stephen’s antics as a toddler.

The house at Greenacres had been built in 1790 and it became another source of inspiration, as Lenski liked to imagine the everyday lives of the people who had previously lived in her home. In
Phebe Fairchild, Her Book
(1936), for instance, a young girl is sent to live with her father’s family on their farm in northwestern Connecticut in 1830‚ when Greenacres would have been forty years old. For its rich and detailed depiction of family life in rural New England, the book was awarded the Newbery Honor.

Other historical novels followed—including
A-Going to the Westward
(1937), set in central Ohio;
Bound Girl of Cobble Hill
(1938);
Ocean-Born Mary
(1939);
Blueberry Corners
(1940); and
Puritan Adventure
(1944)—all set in New England; and
Indian Captive
(1941), a carefully researched retelling of the true story of Mary Jemison, a Pennsylvania girl captured by a raiding Native American tribe, for which Lenski won a second Newbery Honor.